One high-ranking officer quoted by Military Police Complaints Commission lawyer Mark Freiman questioned whether Langridge’s mother and stepfather Sheila and Shaun Fynes should see the note at all because knowledge of the delay might adversely affect them emotionally.Adrian Wyld
/ The Canadian Press

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OTTAWA — When it emerged that an angry and frustrated Sheila Fynes was about to get a copy of her son’s previously “forgotten” suicide note more than a year after his death, it triggered a confused flurry of email traffic within the military, a federal inquiry heard Wednesday.

The Military Police Complaints Commission probe into the suicide of Afghanistan veteran Stuart Langridge also heard that the stunning revelation that his last wishes had been hidden from his family resulted in hastily prepared media lines that contained misleading and erroneous information.

“Is it fair to say there was a fair amount of confusion at this point about who said what to whom?” commission lawyer Mark Freiman asked Maj. Daniel Dandurand, a key witness at the inquiry.

Dandurand, who commanded the military’s National Investigation Service (NIS) western region in 2008 when Langridge hanged himself at CFB Edmonton, agreed there had been confusion and disagreement over how to react.

The media lines — pre-packaged statements given to journalists who might call asking about the case — were prepared with information provided by Dandurand and others in anticipation of Fynes and her husband, Shaun, (Langridge’s stepfather) going public with their complaints.

They read in part:

“If pressed on whether the suicide note was mentioned during the interview with the family the answer is mother and stepfather did not ask about the note and the investigator did not mention it. NIS has revised its procedures to ensure it doesn’t happen again.”

The media lines also claimed that Dandurand had apologized to the Fynes when Langridge’s suicide note came to light in May 2009, when in fact he did not meet them until November.

“None of this is correct is it?” asked Freiman.

“No,” admitted Dandurand, who agreed that procedures around suicide notes couldn’t have been changed because there weren’t any in the first place.

“Do you know the basis for these representations?” asked Freiman. “Who could have been the source of the information but you?”

Dandurand said he couldn’t recall but rejected the accusation that false information had necessarily come from him.

The email exchanges show that even when the revelation about the suicide note was on the verge of becoming public, there was still resistance within the NIS to releasing the original.

The military detective agency which, according to the Fynes, whitewashed the investigation into their son’s death, claimed it kept the note because it was evidence.

“We appreciate the sensitivity of this matter,” wrote a colleague of Dandurand, “but the original note is still retained for evidence. I do not foresee the original note being turned over.”

The detective suggested that the family should be forced to get a copy of the note through an Access to Information request — a suggestion that brought a terse response from the adjutant at Langridge’s regiment, Lord Strathcona’s Horse Regiment.

“I am sure you can appreciate the sensitive nature of this request,” wrote Capt. Eric Angell. “The family already has a copy of the note. They want to possess the original. As a ATO request will only get them a copy, this is not really an option.”

Dandurand wrote to a regimental officer to say that it was not routine for the NIS to release evidence and it could be held for years, but in testimony Wednesday said he now realizes that withholding the contents of the note had been wrong,

In another email, Lt. Col Rod Lander, Land Force Provost Marshal, says that the NIS “did not reveal the existence of the note to the family as it, in their opinion, would not have added anything to the information already passed (to them) ... and they felt it might even have had a negative effect.”

In his note, Langridge asked for a simple family funeral. Unaware of this, his parents agreed to a military service — a decision Sheila Fynes said is still “devastating.”

The chief investigator in the case has testified that the note was initially impounded as evidence but never examined. It was, he said, placed in storage and “forgotten.”

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